Colin Seale (he/him)

Founder and CEO of thinkLaw

How did you get into teaching?

I was on my way to the Maxwell School at Syracuse University in New York with a fellowship and full tuition in hand to get my Master’s in Public Administration degree. Fate intervened when a friend of mine wanted me to join her at an info session one evening to learn about something called “Teach for America”.

I came for the pizza and ended up becoming a math teacher.

Almost 20 years later, I’ve stayed in this field, doing this work, because I realized that something was wrong with my story. I was an exception to the rule, because the rule said that kids like me, kids who grew up on free and reduced lunch in Brooklyn with a single mom and an immigrant family and an incarcerated father typically do not reach the levels of success I had already experienced academically. I decided to teach because I was tired of feeling like an exception to the rule. Since then, I’ve made it my mission to help create a world where all young people have a fair shot at being exceptional.

Who was the teacher who made the most positive impact on your life?

My middle school math teachers: Ms. Williams, Mr. Joseph, and Mr. McNeil, at I.S. 285 in East Flatbush. Ms. Williams was my 6th grade math teacher, Mr. Joseph was the math team coach (#MathleteForLife), and Mr. McNeil taught me math in 7th and 8th grade. They realized that they had a special group of students and advocated for the unthinkable in our district: putting 7th graders into the equivalent of Algebra I, allowing my classmates and me to start high school double-accelerated in math. They not only rejected any notion of “these kids can’t” but also did not settle for a “this system can’t” response when it came to creating transformational learning opportunities for students.

What is a professional inquiry you are currently pursuing?

How can we, practically-speaking, push against the uber-compliant nature of educational systems - and individuals within those systems - to create something better than what we have?

This idea of Tangible Equity (discussed at length in my latest book) seeks to bring our learning beyond understanding things how they are, to a space where we are designing and advocating for the way things ought to be. In other words, what it looks like if instead of spending so much time and energy teaching students how to play the game, we did that, and also helped them learn and use the tools needed to slay the game?

What is a personal inquiry you are currently pursuing?

How do I solve the Rubik’s Cube?

I have been trying to figure out how to bridge the massive gap between the “why,” the “what,” and the “how” on this! I conceptually get what a Rubik’s Cube is. And I can go to one of those websites where you color in every square on the specific cube in front of you and it shoots back a step-by-step guide on how to solve it. But at the end of the day, I still don’t actually know how to solve it once the squares get all moved around. And this brings me to my most deflating takeaway: even in a song literally called This is How We Do It where Montell Jordan repeats the same phrase 50,000 times, there is no actual explanation of how “it” is actually done!

What three best ideas you have to improve the teaching profession?

I. Stop meeting students where they are.

If you have students who are years behind their grade level, why in the world would you meet them there? Meet them HOW they are and WHO they are instead. Acknowledge where they are, but only to the extent that it helps you understand how much must be done to get them where they need to go.

II. Create systems that routinely allow teachers to observe their colleagues.

In the work I lead with thinkLaw, I get to see hundreds of classrooms every year. I have NEVER visited a classroom where I didn’t learn or see something I had never learned or seen before. Practicing law allowed me to go to court regularly and see amazing attorneys in action from my firm and from firms across my city. But some teachers rarely get to see the potential magic happening down their own hallway. That’s got to change!

III. Differentiate the journey, not the destination.

When it comes to differentiation, I believe I was mis-educated. I thought differentiation meant I gave the “high” kids the tough assessment, the “middle” kids the medium one, and the “low” kids the easy one. This is an awful practice that is unfortunately still used by lots of educators. The reality is that for every thing we teach, students need to be able to answer challenging, in-depth questions at or above grade-level. That’s the destination. It might feel like mission impossible, but at least it’s the right mission.

You gotta see this!

Hocus Pocus in the Public Schools is an entertaining and very important piece that my colleague Clint wrote about shenanigans happening in his North Texas community. Definitely worth the read (and a discussion)!